Category Archives: Tropical

Our First Cruise: Hot and Dry Aruba

Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya…

Our first morning glimpse of a sandbar off the coast of Aruba from on high in the ship

We couldn’t get that song out of our head as we arrived in Aruba and sang it throughout our time there, which would be our longest day in port. From 8am to 11pm! We decided since we had extra time that we would make this day an official “excursion day” in which we bought the trip from Royal Caribbean at their desk located next to client services. We chose the “Best of Aruba tour” which was an air conditioned bus because Britton’s ankle had swollen up and he wanted to do a little less strenuous activity than the days prior. We were also super sunburnt from Curacao the day before, so we needed a break from the beach and brutal southern Caribbean sun. I wished I had brought some aloe for my poor skin! We had some time prior to the tour at 1pm, so we explored near the ship as well.

Oranjestad, Aruba from the ship

All of the stops accepted the US dollar, but in Aruba, they had their own currency, the florin, as well. I really liked the little square coins we got back as change from our stop at the gas station where they spoke to me in Papiamento and my Spanish was understood better than English.

Local Aruban junk food and change

Exploring the area near the port -this building was like a wedding cake

From the wedding cake looking toward the ship

A lot of people tried to get us in their stores, mainly jewelry shops

Around 12:45 we loaded onto the bus for the tour of northern Aruba. My main impression of Aruba was that it was the Arizona of the Caribbean. Hot, dry, and windy! There was a cheaper open-window bus tour that seemed a little more fun, but I think we chose well to get the air conditioned bus instead. We are used to heat in Puerto Rico, but I was shocked by the dry heat, the searing sun, and the lack of shade trees nearly anywhere in Aruba.

A few things we just drove past like this 1700s church and cemetery

Private residence with cactus fence like in Bonaire

We drove past a lot of things such as an old church, an ostrich farm and private residences. We made a few stops at various locations such as the rock formations, collapsed natural bridge (which must have been spectacular but now is not nearly as interesting), the cool California lighthouse and I think we probably got the best feel for Aruba than any of the other islands because of this 3-hour tour! What was a little disappointing was just how stick-in-the-mud everyone on the bus was save for the bus driver, us, two Puerto Rican women behind us and a Dutch kid who liked fart jokes. We were the only ones laughing and having a good time. It was like death warmed over with the average age being around 65.

At the collapsed Natural Bridge in Aruba

A smaller bridge near the large natural bridge (son of a bridge as the busdriver called it) that they say will soon collapse too

At the Natural Bridge area they had a gift shop and small café. They tried to charge us $1 each to use the bathroom and wouldn’t refill our water bottles with tap water. As jungle hillbillies, we have become comfortable peeing in the bushes, or in this case in the cactus.

Ayo Rock formations

Our next stop was to the Ayo Rock formations. This was pretty cool because it had a beautiful view of most of Aruba including the haystack mountain. They also had a little bar with decent priced beers, filled our water bottles with ice cold water and let us use the bathrooms like normal modern human beings.

Bon Bini (welcome) to a friendlier place in Aruba than our first stop!

View of Aruba from atop the rocks

What else can you do with rocks and boulders besides sit on them or make granite counters?

Haystack hill/mountain

Britton and the view

Because we got so sunburnt from our beach day in Curacao I had been looking for aloe all day. Ask and you shall receive. Not only did I find aloe on this tour, but a whole aloe vera factory! ha!

At an aloe vera farm/factory in Aruba

Aloe vera demonstration

Inside the factory as they made soaps and lotions with the aloe

Our final stop was to the California Lighthouse in northern Aruba. It was a very iconic lighthouse and from the restaurant we enjoyed a panoramic view of the rest of the island.

At the California Lighthouse

View from the restaurant of the California Lighthouse

A short video of the tour

When we returned from our bus trip we still had a little more time before we needed to get back on the ship for dinner so we walked to the nearest grocery store to refill our stash of illegal alcohol. A friendly Colombian woman pointed us in the right direction. As we arrived near the store, a drunken homeless man started talking to us in English and Spanish and asking us what we were doing, what we needed etc. He ran in front of us to the store and told someone who worked there to show us the alcohol section of the store. We thanked him and told him we would give him a shot of whatever alcohol we bought when we exited.

When we left we sat down on a step near the store to pour the liquor into the water bottles and give him the rest of the bottle. He was not happy with just that though and wanted us to give him $5 for helping us. We said that seemed a little ridiculous, (especially because we didn’t need nor ask for his help) but sat and talked with him a bit more. I was giving Britton the eye that we had better get out of there before something weird happened. The man said he was a portrait artist and he could draw me. I took this as an opportunity. “Ok, but where is your paper and pen?” He staggered up and ran off to find some. I told Britton we should book it. We grabbed our stuff, left a dollar under a quarter of a bottle of rum and literally ran off. We could hear him yelling “Come back, here! Come back!” but we were long gone around the corner and had another pretty good story to tell our tablemates at dinner that night.

Goodbye (Ayo, Tanten! in Papiamento) Aruba and southern Caribbean!

The adventures are almost always found off the main roads in life! Oh Aruba, I won’t soon forget you!

Next stop, St Maarten!

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Our First Cruise: Curacao’s Blue Bay Beach

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B and Me in Curacao

Our day in Curacao also started with no set plans. We checked out the view of the city from atop the ship and wore our swimsuits and brought our snorkels in hope of walking or taking a taxi down to a nearby beach. We are so spoiled because we have beaches all around us here in Puerto Rico, but every beach is different and we wanted to see how Curacao compared. If you go on a Caribbean vacation, it is sort of a mandate that you spend at least one day at the beach, right?!

Britton with Williamstad, Curacao in the background with its futuristic looking skybridge

As we were collecting ourselves off the ship, we ran into our tablemates Tiffany and Keno and asked what their plans were for the day. They said they just wanted to go to a nice, not-too-crowded beach, just like us! So we decided to share a taxi. There was a closer man-made beach called Mambo, but the taxi driver persuaded us to go a little further to Blue Bay. As we drove along, I again remarked about how very dry everything was in Curacao and we did spot a flamingo quickly out the window.

Blue Bay Beach and golf course was very well maintained and obviously watered by some outside/municipal? source

Unfortunately, we didn’t bring much money because we were anticipating staying near the ship. We quickly found out that unlike in Puerto Rico, there are private beaches in Curacao and they can charge you to use them!! It was $8 per person to access the Blue Bay Beach which was located inside a golf course resort. Thankfully, Tiffany and Keno helped us to cover the shortage we had so that we could stay and not turn around and take the taxi right back! It was a stunningly beautiful beach, but I am so thankful that in Puerto Rico there are no private beaches.

The beautiful waters of Blue Bay Beach. It’s easy to see how it got its name and why curacao liquor is this shade of blue

Date palm and playground area

The golf course attempted to keep things lush, but it is obviously still a desert

The lizards were a little different from what I’m used to as well. Keeping with the blue theme, this one had blue feet!

With friends Keno and Tiffany at Blue Bay

We swam around and snorkeled for a bit. Where the dark blue waters touched the turquoise there were some incredible things to see that I haven’t seen while snorkeling in Puerto Rico such as the amazing purple tube coral (organ pipe coral) that looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss story. The way the dark waters blended with the light also had a faint quality of oil mixing with water. As I dove deep to touch the white sands and stir up the schools of blue tang, rainbow parrot, needlenosed eels and other fish I felt as if I were swimming in an aquarium. It was so fantastically wonderful.

Peeking my head up for a moment while snorkeling

Britton relaxing in the warm Caribbean waters

When we went back to meet up with Keno and Tiffany we asked how their snorkeling was going. They said it was fun, but they hadn’t seen anything really. I said they needed to go over by the piers and the little huts where the waters turned dark. Tiffany had a fear of deep water, but I told her there was nothing to worry about. You won’t sink! She worked through her fear and after a good long time, she slid from the pier into the water and was so excited to see some of what I had seen, though she didn’t go out as far or as deep.

Talking her into it!

Showing her how simply it’s done

I scrambled up and down the rocks near the pier for a while until a Dutchman warned me of stonefish! I snorkeled with him for some time and he showed me three of them in a small vicinity. They are very good at camouflaging to their environment and I could have easy grabbed one or stepped on one had they been hiding out on the rocks. These are fish you don’t want to encounter physically, or our stay in Curacao could have included a trip to the hospital!

Snorkeling with Tiffany on the dark and light side of the water while Keno watched and snapped photos

Hanging out under the palm frond palapa huts

While the water was gorgeous, the raw landscape was harsh and dry!

Checking out the little restaurant area

Something else we learned was that topless swimming was completely allowed. To our American eyes this started out as a little shocking, but slowly became normal as mothers and daughters walked and lazed around just as the men without anything on top!

Through the looking glass of a gorgeous view

It was a wonderful day, but we came back sunburnt, salty and hungry! There also wasn’t time to explore much else in Curacao before heading back onboard. I am sure that the rest of Curacao is very different from this resort, but it was just the perfectly picturesque vision many people have of a Caribbean vacation and I was ok with that too.

A postcard perfect day

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Our First Cruise: Bonaire

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After traveling throughout the night we arrived in Kralendijk, Bonaire making it our first stop of the cruise. Our cruise, as it turned out, was to all Dutch or formally Dutch islands. I know very little about Dutch or Holland, and barely skimmed the surface of Dutch colonialism in our stops. Three of the four stops were also to the southern Caribbean closer to South America than north, the exception being St Maarten.

Overlooking Bonaire from upon high -notice all the lounge chairs are empty as nearly everyone had left.

We got in the habit of checking out the port cities from high above on the cruise ship each day before exiting. This gave us the ability to see from a bird’s eye view what was walkable and anything else of interest. The boat was eerily vacated by the time we descended and left, but I much preferred it to the crowd of masses on sea days. It was only on port days that we enjoyed the pool and other areas that were otherwise way too packed.

Enjoying one of the empty pools on a port day

Since it was our first stop, we thought we would play it by ear and just wander around near the port of Kralendijk. The process to leave the ship was very simple. There were no customs agents of any sort. No passport stamping at all coming or going. When we exited the boat, they simply scanned our Sea Pass card and we descended. To reboard, we rescanned and went through a metal detector by the security company hired by the cruiseline.

Mind Your Head -I thought this sign was interesting for a few reasons

It started as a bit of a cloudy day and then turned hot and sunny

Being the anti-authoritarian rebel I am (haha), when they said to go left for “great shopping” we went right to see what Kralendijk was really like. We ended up in sort of a ghetto neighborhood and in an Asian grocery store.

Some things on the shelf of the store

I enjoyed looking at all the products I have never seen elsewhere. One thing about being on a cruise with all the gourmet foods you can stuff in your system is that you don’t have a desire to try any of the local cuisine of the stops you take which is a shame because you can learn a lot about a culture through its food.

Britton hot and sweaty with two different beers we have never seen before

We did, however, get a chance to try local light beers at each of our stops. These included Zulia, Claro, Bright, and a different variety of Amstel.

I loved seeing all the road signs in Dutch. Let OP! Drempels

I stopped in to a photocopy shop to get copies of our passports because they said onboard that we should have some sort of identification with us, but that a copy would suffice. I talked with the woman behind the counter and she spoke more Spanish with me than English though it was interspersed with what I think was Dutch. I ran into some Dominicans, Colombians and Venezuelans in the stores too, a reminder of how much impact Latin America has on these Dutch islands. This was also our first introduction to Papiamento, the pidgin and commonly spoken language in the A, B, C islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.

The first signs we weren’t in the lush tropics anymore, but rather a desert were these cactus fences. Also, note the milkweed to the right where we also saw a lot of butterflies feeding

As I was inside the photocopy shop, Britton waited outside and set down the bag of goodies that we bought in the grocery store in order to throw away a beer bottle. When he came back to it 30 seconds later, he found someone rifling through it. He yelled that it was his bag and the guy started to give him aggressive attitude and posturing. Britton said he started to feel the heat rise and tried to diffuse the situation speaking in Spanish and English “it’s ok, amigo, friend” and finally the guy left the bag alone. After that we grabbed it, got the heck out of there and went left after all.

Street scene in Bonaire

Bonaire is known for its flamingos and nearly everything uses this spirit animal including the post office

Apparently this was some sort of government building whose sign I didn’t understand because I again got ushered out

Cool old Dutch architecture – and cannons!

Our day in Bonaire was pretty short with a departure time of just 5pm, so we just barely got a feel for it and went back aboard the ship to take more pictures from above. If we had gotten up earlier or had more time in general I would have liked to have seen the flamingos, some of the beaches or gone on the ATV tour, but for our first stop we felt pretty content with just walking around a bit.

Britton and Bonaire